Heart Murmur

Saturday I took my healthy Pipsqueek in for his shots and to learn how to clean his ears. He is my "true male"...he burps, farts and always has a dirty face. As the vet was examining him, she discovered a heart murmur. She tried listening for about 3-4 minutes trying to get his heart rate down, but the poor boy was going at 200-220 beats a minute. The vet recommended a echocardiagram next month. She gave it a rating of 1.

Pip has never been sick a day in his life beyond some bowel trouble as a kitten. I've read all the threads I could find on the Health forum. Does anyone have any articles I can read? I want to learn as much as I can.

One of the best resources out there

"ask Dr. Mike"


And on the holistic side:

Heart Murmur

I wouldn't suggest you use holistic instead of conventional medicine, but sometimes working side by side the two can compliment each other. Just let your vet know-

Thanks Hissy. I'm amazed at how calm I am about this. I'm guessing its cause I've read so much about heart murmurs already on this site. Plus Pip isn't showing any of the trouble signs. He runs up and down my stairs after his bigger brother with ease.

My maine coon mix Kabota has a heart murmur- he will be 5 or 6 years old next year (I can never remember) It hasn't slowed him down at all.

From what I know of heart murmurs there are 2 kinds. Congenital which cats are born with (my levi has one rated a 2) & those caused by plaque build up over time (which my Smokey had the last 6 or 7 years of her life & had no effects from) Considering how low the vet rated the murmur & with out knowing anything the vet did for you I'm supprised he or she would recommend a heart echo, unless other tests have been done. My Smokey had a very fast heart rate, but it was always especialy elevated when she went to the vet because of stress. She was 17 when she passed away from Kidney failure. Levi is only 7 or 8 months old & the vets main concern with him was heart worm because he had been a stray. He does not have heart worm & at this point I'm going to wait until after he's a year to make a decision about a heart work up. My vet said sometimes cats under a year have a mumur that somehow gets better as they grow. The only place in Wisconsin that has a feline cardiologist is the University Wisconsin Madison. I only worry about Levi because he is so young & because he tends to eat a lot & I'm trying to prevent him from becoming super over weight.

Sphinx has also been recently diagnosed with a hear murmur about 10 months ago (He's approx. 17-18 years old).He has a fast heart rate too and they want to do some tests on him as well but he hates going to the vets and being handled for more than a couple of minutes.